View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the relationship between Christian Cossacks and Muslim Tartars?

2. What does Marya say she got, in her marriage to Sergey?

3. Who did Lukashka actual kill?

4. How does Tolstoy describe Dmitri's thoughts about love?

5. What are Ivan Ilych's symptoms of the illness that kills him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role do Liza Annenskaya's pregnancies play in "The Devil"?

2. What does Marya think about her marriage at first?

3. What is Marya Alexandrovna's situation at the beginning of "Family Happiness"?

4. Describe the promotions Ivan Ilych receives.

5. How has Marya's attitude about marriage changed by the end of the story?

6. Who are the Grebensk Cossacks?

7. What happens to end the truce between Ivan Ilych and Praskovya Federovna?

8. What happens in the first ambush Lukashka sets up?

9. How does illness affect Ivan Ilych?

10. What kinds of problems does Ivan Ilych have with Praskovya Federovna, his wife?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe Tolstoy's treatment of the relationship between masters and servants in three stories in "Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy". How are the roles defined? How do characters vary from them?

Essay Topic 2

How does Tolstoy treat the relationship between Russians and others--Chechen, Tartars, Cossacks, Turks? What make Russians Russian? What distinguishes them from the others, and what is the basis for hostility when there his hostility? What stance does Tolstoy take in presenting these relationships? (Sympathetic, critical, nationalistic?)

Essay Topic 3

Some of Tolstoy's characters learn and grow, but some, like Ivan Ilych's wife, remain consistently bound to their temperament. Analyzing characters who are bound by temperament, assess the theory of temperament in Tolstoy's writing. Are people free to develop, or are they bound by their characters, in Tolstoy's opinion?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 691 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample